In April, I had the chance to visit Flora in the Orchards with Rashid Benoy. What I found was a place already full of beauty, birdsong and quiet purpose, with its future taking shape at every turn.
I know Flora Cultura well from creating and maintaining their website, but this was my first chance to walk the site properly, to understand it with my feet as well as my screen, and to see how much is already happening in this beautiful corner of Powys.
It was one of those bright spring days when everything feels freshly awake. We sat for a while listening to the birds, looking out across the Bronllys hospital buildings to the Black Mountains and the Brecon Beacons beyond. The setting is quietly extraordinary. There are orchard trees in blossom, long views, old paths, new planting beds, pockets of woodland and a sense that the whole place is beginning to breathe again.
Bronllys Hospital has its own deep connection with landscape and recovery. The hospital was originally established as a sanatorium in 1920 to support people with tuberculosis, and its gardens once included ornamental areas, productive gardens and orchards. Patients worked in the gardens as part of their rehabilitation, so Flora’s work here feels not like an interruption, but a return.
Flora Cultura found its home in 1.5 acres of the former orchards in December 2024, bringing a long-neglected area back into use as Flora in the Orchards. The charity provides social and therapeutic horticulture for improved mental health and wellbeing, working with people with mental health conditions, physical or learning disabilities, sensory loss, autism and other neurological conditions.
Walking around the site with Rashid, what struck me most was how clearly he could see the future of it. Every area had a story. Every overgrown edge seemed to hold a possibility.
He talked about discovering old metalled paths beneath the grass and growth, and how these can be opened up and extended into a more accessible path system. The aim is not simply to make the site easier to move around, but to make it genuinely welcoming, including for wheelchair users and people who need more stable, predictable routes through the garden.
We looked at the new beds being dug ready for vegetable planting this spring. These are not just productive spaces. They are places where people can learn, participate, contribute and feel the satisfaction of seeing something grow because they helped make it happen.
The polytunnel needed watering while we were there, which felt like a very practical reminder that gardens are never theoretical. They need hands, attention and care. Rashid showed me the ventilation system, which opens up another layer of learning for clients. Growing under cover is different from growing outside in the beds, and Flora gives people the chance to understand both.
There is a composting system too, because this is a working, living site. Nothing feels ornamental for the sake of it. The processes matter. The making of soil, the tending of plants, the small routines of watering, pruning, mulching and harvesting all become part of the therapeutic value of the place.
In the boggier area, willow is being grown for future arts and crafts activities. I loved this detail. It says so much about the way the charity is approaching their work. The garden is not just being restored to look beautiful, although it is already doing that. It is being shaped as a place of use, creativity, learning and inclusion.
The orchards themselves are also being carefully brought back into management. Diseased trees have been removed where needed, new fruit trees have been planted to increase variety and the existing trees are being pruned and cared for properly again after years of neglect. Rashid is, it turns out, a passionate pruner, and there was real pleasure in hearing him talk about giving these trees the attention they have been missing.
Flora’s partnership with Powys Teaching Health Board is also helping to bring this large section of the former orchard and kitchen garden back into use, both as orchards and as a food garden, supporting mental and physical wellbeing for patients, staff and the wider community.
What I came away with, more than anything, was a sense of potential being gently, practically narrated at every turn.
There is already beauty here. The views are remarkable. The birdsong is constant. The blossom, the grass, the old hospital buildings and the Black Mountains beyond all give the site a powerful sense of place.
But Flora in the Orchards is not just beautiful. It is purposeful.
It is a place where neglected ground is being brought back into life. Where people can learn skills at their own pace. Where activity, nature, structure and companionship come together. Where the simple act of working with soil, plants and seasons can help restore confidence, self-worth and wellbeing.
I left feeling uplifted and very proud to be supporting Flora Cultura’s work.
Sometimes, looking after the digital side of an organisation can feel quite separate from the thing itself. But standing there in the orchards, listening to Rashid describe what has been uncovered, planted, planned and imagined, the connection felt very clear.
This is a special place, and it is only just in its infancy, the site and the people the charity introduce to it are at the beginning of a very special journey.
